date to church

...And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins.


i would do anything for love,
but i won't do that.

tonight our favorite catholic priest was in fine form. he wanted to tell us about the metaphor of new wine in old wineskins (mark 2:22). he started out saying, "wineskins? what ever, Mark!" but then he went on...


whatever, mark.

now, to my understanding, he had misinterpreted the metaphor - which is about how you can't make wine in old wineskins, because they'll explode from the fermentation. however, he wanted to tell us about how the old wineskins are all tough and leathery and they have to be softened up (here he made wide massaging gestures) and opened up (massage, massage) so the new wine, which is the lord, can enter them.


massage, massage.

i guess his interpretation was as good as any.
(when i just typed this, i accidentally typed, "as god as any.")

so then he started another metaphor - what if someone had been raised on rap music and that's all they ever heard, and then when they were twenty, they heard some beethoven? he said, if they weren't open to that (massage, massage), if they weren't softened up in advance, they would not be able to appreciate it... "and it goes the other way, too," he added: if a person was raised on mozart, and all they ever heard was mozart, "and then when they were twenty, they heard some meat loaf, or stairway to heaven, or some aerosmith, they wouldn't know what they were hearing!" then he said confidentially, "i just had to throw meat loaf in there, because they're my favorite band!"

then he rolled his eyes and flapped his wrists and said, "what a tangent!"


this is meat loaf.

...yes, i hooted out loud. the ancient deaf lady in the pew ahead of us turned around and stared at me with wide startled eyes. i really wonder what she heard.

then he went back to talking about how we must be softened up, we must be opened up, so the lord can enter us.

then we sang, "what a privilege, what a joy divine..."

need i say how much i love our favorite catholic priest? the very best thing is, his voice sounds just like that extra-campy hero of my childhood:


snagglepuss.

see below for how to make new wine.

Get a 5 gallon plastic bucket with a lid. Find 15-20 pounds of something resembling fruit or vegetables. Remove stems & seeds. Crush or mash the fruit; squishing with your fingers works well, or a potato masher. Dump the ugly mess, called "must", into the plastic bucket.

Simmer around 10 pounds of sugar in water until it's a nice clear syrup and stir it into the fruit. Add some water to almost fill the bucket and mix it all up. Leave 4-6 inches of space for the foam to rise under the lid, or you might have a mess on the floor because you can't put new wine in old wineskins!

Take a cup or two of your must, with enough water, that it's not too thick, make it nice and warm, not hot, pour in an envelope of wine yeast and stir it up. Dump it in.

Once a day, for a week or so, stir up the mess with a stick.


serving suggestion.

When the bubbling has slowed down, use a sieve of some kind to strain the ugly mess. Try to squeeze as much juice as you can out of the pulp before you trash it. This is the worst part of the process. Don't expect clear juice. The stuff will settle to the bottom eventually. Best strainer I've found so far is panty hose. You can put one leg inside the other and have a fine, strong mesh that you can hang over a bucket, fill with gallons of goop, and squeeze.

Pour this murky liquid into a new container, add enough water to almost fill the bucket again and put a lid on it. Anything tight enough to keep flies out, is fine. As long as your juice is bubbling, you don't have to worry about bad bacteria, as the bubbles are carbon dioxide, which lies like a blanket over the liquid, protecting it. A sheet of plastic wrapped over the bucket is good. If that's really tight, just put a pinhole or two in the sheet, so pressure doesn't build up.

Let it sit undisturbed for a month. A dark and warm place is good. Siphon off the contents, leaving the sediment on the bottom, and drink/bottle it.


...which is, in fact, what He did.

If you're in no rush, siphon it into another large container (this is called "racking") and let it sit for another month or 3. It should get better and gather potency with age.

now you can put it in your old wineskins.

wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day begins

double vision is a ghost hovering under every object, a shadow made of light. one squints. a tremor is an automatic paradox; the tighter one grips, the more energetically things fly out of one's grasp. things like coffee. fatigue is a constant mystery. blue hands white hands red hands, the changing colors, the unhealed scratches, the see-through skin, these things are bizarre. one becomes weary. novelty becomes fright and hopelessness. the task of Concealing All becomes more arduous.



the patient wants to see into the future, to be able to plan, to brace themselves. the doctor has been coached to Promise Nothing and will not hazard a guess. what's second-best? "i will not abandon you?" but if one can't really ante up the $75 per visit, one abandons the doctor. then what?

i'm writing a paper about essentialism. again. it seems there's no hope; essentialism is the star we steer by, the way we go round the mulberry bush. one can hope that some doctrine or other of fellow-feeling will expand one's horizon, but when push comes to shove, when patient A comes to exam room B, that fundamental attribution error goes to God. the patient is sick; the patient is recognizable by their sickness; the sickness shrinks the person to patient-size. the sickness, like skin color (if there is one), like gender (if there is one), is essence. the sickness keeps you over there, me over here. a system of privilege based on location in the exam room. i go back and forth across the room like any physician who gets sick, and become a conundurum like mixed-race or transgendered. no, only a conundurum to myself. the physician will identify my essence for me. ah, well.



that the fallen world is a vale of tears is the oldest story, and the ways to escape that wheel of karma are many and detailed. back to work! back to work! on saturday the priest said we are to give glory to the divine, to turn the light to shine on the divine rather than on our teensy little selves - "or we'll never become saints!" it's a juggling act, shining brightly out across the firmament while also writing a paper on essentialism, squinting at the indeterminate squiggles on the page, and trying not to shake the coffee into one's lap.

so you better get right with god. you sons and daughters of hungry ghosts. i ain't no square.



none of this makes sense! it's the error of waking up too early, not being able to get back to sleep; the illogic of dreams gets up and puts on a robe and starts typing.